Billionaire Slack Co-founder’s Daughter Reported Missing: Police

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield speaks at his companys Frontiers conference at Pier 27 & 29 in San Francisco, Calif., on April 24, 2019. Noah Berger/AFP via Getty Images

The 16-year-old daughter of billionaire Slack founder and former CEO Stewart Butterfield has been reported missing after allegedly “running away” from home, according to police in California.

Mint Butterfield was reported missing on April 22 at 8:30 a.m., according to a notice from the Marin County Sheriff’s Office.

Mint was last seen on April 21 at approximately 10 p.m. in Bolinas, California, police said.

Law enforcement officials described Mint as being 5-foot-tall and weighing 100 lbs with “brown/reddish curly hair” and pierced eyebrows.

She was last seen wearing a “black sweatshirt, flannel pajama pants, and black boots” and may also have been carrying a “gray suitcase.”

“It is believed Mint headed to the San Francisco area after running away,” police said in the notice. “Please contact Marin County Sheriff’s Office with any information on their whereabouts.”

Separately, San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey posted on the social media platform X on April 23 that Mint was last believed to have been in or around San Francisco’s downtown Tenderloin neighborhood.

The neighborhood has been plagued with violent crime, rampant homelessness, and a rise in drug use in recent years which has left many residents too scared to leave their homes and businesses unable to hire staff due to safety concerns, according to reports.

Last month, two hotels and several residents of the area filed a lawsuit against the city over the worsening situation in the district, accusing them of allowing the area to become a “containment zone for narcotic activities.”

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are not seeking monetary damages but are urging city officials to ensure that sidewalks and public spaces in the area are kept “clean, safe, and accessible.”

Butterfield’s Business Empire

In his post on X, Mr. Dorsey urged anyone who may have seen Mint or has information regarding her whereabouts to contact the police.

Sergeant Adam Schermerhorn told the publication that the sheriff’s office was currently “working with SFPD detectives to try and locate” the missing teen.

The Epoch Times has contacted the Marin County Sheriff’s Office for further comment.

The San Francisco Chronicle also reported that the teenager was known to frequent the Tenderloin area.

Entrepreneur-investor Caterina Fake, who co-founded the image and video hosting service Flickr with Mr. Butterfield in 2004, is Mint’s mother.

According to the New York Post, Mint had been living with Ms. Fake at the time of her disappearance and was attending a private boarding school in California’s Napa area.

Mr. Butterfield sold Flickr to Yahoo in 2005 for a reported $25 million.

The couple married in 2001 and divorced in 2008, according to Business Insider, and roughly a year after they separated, Mr. Butterfield went on to co-found the workplace messaging app Slack.

Slack was acquired by cloud-based software company Salesforce in July 2022 for $27.7 billion. Mr. Butterfield left Salesforce a few months after it acquired his company, in December.

According to Forbes magazine, Mr. Butterfield is worth an estimated $1.6 billion.